


Dancing in the Ruins

by disillusionist9



Series: Choose Dare [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, No Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7929568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disillusionist9/pseuds/disillusionist9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble #18 of 100 | After the Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione clings to what's familiar and safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing in the Ruins

"Is it really over?" Hermione whispered.

Ron tightened his grip around her as she sat on his lap in the Gryffindor common room. "Yes. The battle ended a few days ago. We're at Hogwarts. Harry's alive. _We're_ alive."

Hermione snuggled closer into his arms below the blanket covering the two of them. Every day she and Ron would work on the castle with the older students and staff and he would go home in the afternoons to be with his family. The loss of Fred was affecting everyone differently. An unspoken rotating shift schedule was established around George after Fred's burial two days after the battle. Whenever Ron came back to the castle, came back to her, he was physically and emotionally exhausted but always had enough energy to pull her to him for an embrace that said more than words ever could and listened to her recount the details of the day.

This evening the two of them had fallen asleep in front of the reconstructed fireplace. Ron shifted below her to place a kiss to her temple, and another, trying to wake her up a bit more fully.

"C'mon," he said quietly in her ear. "I've something to show you."

With a protest about the time primed on her lips she looked up to him but cut the words short at the look in his eyes inches from her own. Stifling a yawn, she nodded and began the process of disentangling from each other.

His hand was warm in hers on their walk through the portrait hole and out into rarely used corridors. Bright yellow spells blocked those hallways still too dangerous to venture down, the yellow a mimicry of Muggle police tape, a spell of Hermione's own design. Not her most impressive spellwork but it certainly had stopped students wandering where they shouldn't.

Past the entrance to the corridor with the Room of Requirement, Ron guided her down to furthest end where another of her spells blocked the way. Turning back once to look at her with a warm smile he pulled her through the barrier and down a path bright with the light of the moon. Crumbling statuary surrounded them. It was all she could do not to admonish him for taking her down a dangerous hallway; she chose to trust him, instead.

Ron stopped moving in front of her as he reached the center of another area blasted to bits by boulders thrown by giants in the courtyard several stories below. With a tug, he brought her body flush to his own and slid his left hand around her waist. Slowly, their foreheads touching and eyes searching each others, he moved his right hand up along her forearm.

An amateur attempt at the waltz initially startled Hermione, but she laughed and followed along. "You've improved since the Yule Ball," she said.

"We didn't dance at the Yule Ball," Ron replied, spinning her a bit too fast then clipping her foot with his. Hermione steadied herself by bringing both hands to his shoulders and he winced apologetically.

"That doesn't mean I didn't see your attempts with Padma," she said cheekily, easing the tension his blunder caused.

"Oh, nice, Hermione," he groaned in overstated embarrassment. "I was a right tosser to you that night."

Hermione leaned her head against his chest as they slowed to rocking back and forth in the moonlight. "I forgive you."

The hum of her voice against his chest, and the words of forgiveness, caused a swell of emotion he'd never felt with another girl. The wind blowing through the open cracks in the ceiling and walls sang a bittersweet melody that kept time with the two healing teenagers dancing amid the rubble and ruins.


End file.
